


I Wish I Could Still Find You

by Comp_Lady



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Other, Sad, hints at Frost/Shaw, hints at cherik, or at least the beginnings of it, small mentions of other characters, war mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comp_Lady/pseuds/Comp_Lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma knows when Charles Xavier is looking for Erik. Can feel the determination and desperation; she can give Charles a glimpse of Erik. Something to soothe the pain. She can't make Erik take off the helmet, and she can't stop the changes that the passing of times brings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wish I Could Still Find You

**Author's Note:**

> [(Source: weavile](http://weavile.tumblr.com/post/6706358600/i-wish-i-could-still-find-you))

Hank always keeps one eye on the clock and the other on the professor during the sessions with cerebro. When about five minutes are left in the session Hank walks over to where the coordinates are being spat out in quick succession and draws a bold line across the paper.

The last five minutes worth of coordinates are several lines of the exact same numbers that point to nothing.

* * *

Once a month this happens. Charles' presence is amplified, stretched across the world like a spider web. It's not the amplified power that digs into Emma, which is nothing more than a small bother to her, it's the end. The last five minutes or so when Charles' attention and focus shifts. When it isn't a vague search for anyone that may need help, but a pointed search, a mantra of _pleasepleaseplease_ and _takeofthehelmet justthisonce_ and _Ican'ttakethis whereareyou?_ surrounded with a desperate _Iloveyou Imissyou pleasecomehome._

It sets her on edge.

Charles has to know that she can feel it. The regret and the longing and the unmitigated need to feel something other than some empty void amongst a sea of minds.

She needs a drink.

He only ever just taps her and the other's minds, just the slightest touch to assure himself of their identities. The slightest touch to affirm that Raven is there and okay. After that is when the desperation begins. Brought on by that damned helmet.

She knows what it feels like to be cut off from the one mind, that she could live forever with. The moment that Shaw put on that helmet and cut her off was painful. The blank void where Shaw should have been unsettled her beyond anything else. An utter rejection.

She pours a second drink.

 _Professor, follow me_ Emma presses against Charles' presence as she makes her way out onto the back deck of the house they have made HQ, drinks in hand. Emma feels his presence in her mind, light and cautious, the majority of it still clamoring against the void. When she comes out on the deck and spots Erik sitting at the lone table Emma feels Charles focus. Erik looks up when she approaches, sunlight glinting off the helmet.

Emma is all smiles when she sets down Erik's drink, "You looked thirsty."

"Thank you." Erik's returning smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, something flickers in eyes for a moment, and Emma can feel Charles' own loneliness and regret flare, going from a dull ache to a searing pain.

Quickly she coils away from Charles' presence, her shields slamming into place.

 _I'm sorry Ms. Frost,_ Charles' voice echoes softly in her mind, _thank you for this._

Always so polite. Damned English telepath.

Emma settles herself in a lounge chair as she feels Charles' presence pull back and disappear completely. She can't make Erik take off the helmet but she can give Charles a glimpse. Something to soothe the pain.

* * *

Charles thinks the boys don't know. He doesn't read their minds to find out if his assumption is actually true.

Hanks busies himself with the readouts when the session is over and cerebro is lifted from the professor's head, he ignores the tears on the professor's face and makes no comment when Charles quickly swipes them away. The house is slowly filling with students, most are in their teens. Young and frightened by the power they hold.

War looms on the horizon; depression and nervousness hangs heavy in the mansion. The new students can feel it, they move in tight little packs. Evenings are subdued affairs. A contrast to the excitable atmosphere of the early weeks, when they would show off their powers and relish the company of other mutants.

* * *

Charles doesn't notice that two minds are missing when he tries to find Erik. Stress radiates from Raven and Emma, Angel's mind is swathed with rage and fear, the emotions mix into a poison. There is still a void where Erik should be. Charles pulls back sooner than normal and Hank doesn't ask.

* * *

The drafts start coming in, Alex and one of the newer students (Malcom; smart, funny, has an aptitude for poetry, an empath) are the first. Alex gets angry, spends the night in the bunker throwing himself into eliminating every imagined target that he can. The other boy (Malcom, who has a soft heart) spends the night sick in the bathroom. War is not within Charles' experience; he doesn't know the ways to maneuver a battle and turn the tides to ensure that everyone comes out alive. Blood and battle is beyond his experience. A horror read about in books and glimpsed in the minds of different men.

* * *

Charles notices the next absence. Angel is gone. A haze of red surrounds Raven; rage and hate swirl in a roiling cloud that scares Charles. Emma does nothing to quell the storm brewing within Raven's mind. Indignant rage burns within Emma under a thin veneer of carefully laid ice. Charles recoils away before he can even register where they are.

* * *

Hank is never drafted. Charles tries to argue the drafts, that these are children and this is a school. None work. The house empties little by little; the draft sweeps away frightened and angry boys, parents pick up their children, some of the kids run away (Charles hears them come to a decision in the quiet parts of their minds, by the time they are gone it is an inevitability that he chose to ignore,).

* * *

The children are all gone.

Charles watches them through cerebro, checking up on them when he can do nothing. The school is closed and the liquor in his mother's gilded cabinet sings a siren's song.

By habit he turns his attention to the void that is Erik and almost cries out.

The space around Erik is raw. It's skin scratched into an angry bloody welt, left to bleed and fester. Emma is gone and Raven's emotions are a miasma of vitriol, _angerhatefeartheytookher **STOLEHER** strongtotheend **KILLEDHER**_. Charles pulls cerebro off, Hank takes it from limp hands, tears track silent trails down Charles' face as he maneuvers away from the machine.

"I'll be in my mother's old study if you need me."

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to vitarays and weavile on tumblr for the inspiration for this fic.
> 
> [Hey! You can find me on Tumblr, come chat :D](http://comp-lady.tumblr.com)


End file.
